Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Irish) a large, brown shawl.

1994

(con. 1920s) K.C. Kearns Dublin Tenement Life 119: A good shawl, a big brown shawl was called a ‘teddy bear.’ My mother had one of them.

2. (Aus.) a koala.

1913		Sun. Times (Sydney) 18 May 17/1: But there are few animals so quaint and charming as a young native bear playing with its mother [...] It is a ‘teddy bear’ alive, and full of drollery.
1921		World’s News (Sydney) 13 Aug. 11/2: [headline] Australian ‘Teddy Bear’ in New York.
1940		Advocate (Burnie, Tas.) 25 Dec. 5/5: Koala [...] is known generally as the ‘Teddy Bear,’ because about the time that Theodore Roosevelt was President some unknown artist came across a description, or saw a living koala, and moulded it into a plaything.
1950		Maryborough Chron. (Qld) 6 Nov. 2/5: Mr. W.G. Sengstock, who has spent a life time in country areas, recently saw [...] a couple of native bears, more popularly termed by children, teddy bears.

3. (US black) a plump, sexy woman.

1983

R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].

4. a sanitary towel [euph.].

1999

J. Randall ‘A Visit from Aunt Rose’ in Verbatim XXV:1 Winter 26: Pads or tampons [...] have their own euphemisms: mouse mattresses, the white horse, manhole cover, coyote sandwich, saddle blankets, teddy bears, and the industry-sanctioned [...] feminine supplies.

5. (S.Afr. gay) a hirsute, usu. plump, man.

2003

K. Cage Gayle 98/2: teddy bear n. hairy, usually overweight man. (Wearing a miniature teddy bear in the back pocket of one’s denims indicates that one is looking for a hairy, overweight man for sexual purposes.) [American Gayspeak].